Volunteers plant native shrubbery in Stanley Park to help restore forest

Braving the rain on Saturday, over 40 volunteers worked with the Stanley Park Ecology Society to plant some 500 shrubs in the park’s Lost Lagoon area.

The society says it has spent the last few years removing invasive plants, such as the Himalayan Blackberry, from around the park.

Trailing blackberries, red huckleberry, and oso berries are some examples of the native shrubs being planted.

Conservation project manager Dacyn Holinda says the shrubs will create resiliency to help protect the younger trees. This comes as part of the effort to fill in the forest canopy after the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation cut down almost 8,000 trees due to the Hemlock Looper month infestation that has affected approximately 160,000 trees since 2020.

“We are providing a wide variety of shrub plants that can help populate those areas, to prevent the advancement of invasive species, to allow those trees to grow up,” Holinda said.

“A lot of our planting is focused on supporting the city’s efforts of replanting. They have done a lot of work planting saplings, conifers, those larger trees.”

The Stanley Park Ecology Society has spent the last few years removing invasive plants — like the Himalayan Blackberry — from around the park.

“In order to promote survivorship of those trees, we have supplemented a lot of their planting with shrubs, [which] can help populate those areas to prevent the advancement of invasive species to allow those trees to grow up,” Holinda said.

“One of the problems we have with invasive species is that they create monocultures — which is one species that can dominate and take over an area. Fewer birds can nest in them, there are fewer insect species present.”

Tatiana Fisher, the society’s school program coordinator, shared another reason the work is important.

“The native species are really useful, especially to the host Nations that tend to this land,” Fisher said.

“Those are the natural medicines that Nations use. The native plants, they belong here, and they are usually out-competed by invasive species that were brought over by European settlers.”